by E A Chance
Coop grinned through his swollen lip. “It’ll make me look tough.”
“No, it won’t,” Julia said.
“Ah, the honesty of youth,” he said. “I’m going to find the men’s room. Back in a jiff.”
He wandered off into the woods while the three of them made the best of the bucket and then stowed their gear before getting into the truck. Riley took a minute to review the map. They’d been forced to travel fifty miles out of their way, which had been the last thing they needed with their gas supply running low. They’d only made sixty miles since leaving the hotel twelve hours earlier, and it was getting dark.
Riley turned onto Route 29 once Coop was back and strapped in. She was relieved not to find a barricade blocking the road. There was less debris, so she sped up to fifty.
Coop and the girls were asleep within minutes and Riley was left with only the hum of the engine for company. She was skirting a muffler in the middle of the road when the sun slipped below the horizon. Moments later, brilliant swirling waves of green, violet, and red lit the sky.
She tapped Coop’s knee. When he sat up and yawned, she whispered, “Look,” and pointed to the sky.
“Incredible. I’ve wanted to see the Northern Lights since I was a boy. I never thought I’d get the chance in the middle of Virginia.”
“Is that from the CME? We haven’t been out after dark since it hit.”
“The thick smoke and clouds would have obscured it anyway.”
“What are you two jabbering about?” Julia grumbled. “Why can’t you ever just let me sleep?”
“Because I didn’t want you to miss this. Look out your window,” Riley said.
Julia sat up and stared. “Cool!” She tapped Hannah’s arm. “Wake up. You have to see this.”
Hannah wiped her eyes and pressed her face to the window. “What is that?”
“The aurora borealis. Northern Lights,” Julia said. “But, we aren’t far enough north for that.”
“We think it’s from the CME,” Riley said, without taking her eyes from the spectacle.
Riley slowed to take in the stunning sight. The past several days had been filled with danger, death and darkness, and her soul craved light and beauty.
She crested the top of a steep hill and gasped when the next spectacle came into view. The fractured remains of an enormous commercial jet lay sprawled across the road a quarter-mile ahead. The plane was split into two jagged pieces, one on each side of the highway with a thirty-foot gap between them. The right wing was still attached but severed in half. The left wing lay an acre from the fuselage. An evacuation slide hung like a giant tongue from the opening where the wing should have been.
In the light of the aurora, Riley made out the swath of shattered trees where the plane had crashed through the forest on the edge of the field beside the road. A deep gash extended from the forest where the plane skidded on its belly before coming to rest on its side.
While keeping her eyes fixed on the wreckage, she said, “Do you see this, Coop?”
“How could I miss it?”
“What,” Julia said and peeked over the seat. “Is that a plane?”
Hannah popped her head up and gasped. “Do you think anyone’s alive in there?”
Riley glanced at Coop. “No, honey,” she replied.
“See that trail snaking through the wreckage? I think we can navigate through it,” Coop said. “Just take it slow. I’ll keep an eye out for debris.”
Riley gripped the wheel and inched forward at fifteen miles per hour, trying to ignore the seats with bodies still belted to them strewn across the road. When they were fifty yards from the plane, she saw movement in the middle of the gap between the plane sections. It looked like a person waving their arms.
“Coop, get the binoculars. There’s someone out there.”
He took the binoculars out of the glove box and lifted them to his eyes. “It’s a woman. She’s holding a piece of cloth with writing on it.”
Riley put the truck in park and took the binoculars from Coop. “It says SOS. We have to go to her.”
She tossed the binoculars into Coop’s lap and took off as fast as she could to still be able to maneuver through the debris.
“Slow down, Mom,” Julia cried. “You’re going to crash.”
Coop put his hand on her arm. “Listen to your daughter, and don’t think we’re going to stop and get out of this truck. Just drive around her and keep going.”
Riley got as close as she could before she was forced to stop in front of a six-foot pile of neatly stacked luggage blocking the road.
Riley reached for the door handle. “Looks like we don’t have a choice. I’m going to see what she needs.”
Coop grabbed her wrist. “I’m not letting you out of this truck.”
She jerked her arm free. “I don’t answer to you. She could be injured or dying of thirst and hunger.”
“Please don’t leave us alone again, Riley,” Hannah cried.
Coop holstered his gun and opened his door. “I’m going to get out and move the suitcases. Stay here with the girls.”
Riley picked up the gun they’d taken from Crawford and slipped it into her waistband. “Look, she’s coming toward us. We can’t just ignore her. Hannah, I’ll be right over there where you can see me. Lock the doors.”
Coop stared at her, then shook his head. “Riley, wait. I’m sorry for being so rough back there, but you need to think this through. We barely have enough supplies for ourselves, and have you forgotten what happened at the barricade? This could be a trap, and our own survival is my top priority.”
“What you’re saying makes sense, and this may not be the best tactical decision, or the most practical, but it’s right, so that’s why I’m going to do it. This is why I became a doctor. I’m smart enough to understand that we have to be cautious, but I refuse to start seeing everyone we come across as an enemy, especially on our first day.”
Coop studied her with that maddening smirk she remembered from the first time she saw him. “I can’t argue with that. I’ve got your back.”
She and Coop got out, keeping her eyes on the woman as she approached. Riley guessed her age to be around forty. She was wearing a chic but dirty and tattered suit and tennis shoes that looked at least a size too big. Her hair was cut stylishly but hadn’t been washed or brushed for days. She had healing cuts and bruises on her face and hands. She met Riley’s gaze with eyes filled with fear and exhaustion.
Coop stepped in front of Riley as the woman picked her way through the last pieces of luggage and approached them with her hands raised. “Stay alert. We don’t know who’s hiding in the plane.”
Riley nodded as the woman reached them.
“You’re the first people in a week willing to stop. Thank you,” she said. “My name is Angeline Hughes. Angie. There’s a man on the plane whose leg is severely injured. I’ve managed to keep him alive, but he’s not going to make it much longer.”
Coop stepped between her and Riley. “You’ve been living in that plane for a week?”
“Yes. It’s been a hellish nightmare. Can you help us?”
“Who were the other people passing by? How many were there?”
“Mostly families or truckers, but there was this one group of thugs who were about to stop until I raised my shotgun at them even though I’m out of ammo.”
Coop stepped closer to her. “Where’s the shotgun?”
Riley nudged him out of the way. “We’ll do what we can. We’re doctors, but most of our medical supplies were stolen from us earlier. Do you have any on the plane?”
Angie lowered herself onto a stack of suitcases. “You’re doctors?”
“Surgeons,” Coop said.
“It’s a miracle. I took what I could from a pharmacy about two miles from here. I don’t know if it’s what you need.”
“We’ll find out,” Riley said. “Come help us get what little we have from the truck.”
She stood and wiped her
eyes. “You’re angels sent from heaven.”
Riley glanced at Coop, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. They returned to the truck and loaded backpacks with anything that might be useful.
When they were ready, Coop said, “Hannah and Julia, stay here until we come for you. Keep the doors locked and stay down under the blanket. You know the drill.”
Julia nodded and covered herself and Hannah with a blanket. “Sure, Coop.”
Riley patted her head. “Thanks, sweetie. This shouldn’t take long.”
“Do you mind telling us what happened?” Riley asked Angie as they made their way to the crash site.
“My husband and I were flying from Dulles to Paris for our anniversary when the CME hit. A smaller plane struck us, and we both crashed. My husband didn’t make it.” The last words caught in her throat, and she paused.
Riley put an arm around her waist. “I understand. My husband died in a plane crash three years ago.”
Angie nodded and gave her a knowing look. “I have a teenage daughter and an eight-year-old son. I left them with my parents in Allentown, where we live. I haven’t stopped thinking about them for a second since the crash. I’ve just been fighting to stay alive. I have to get back to them no matter what it takes.”
Riley looked at the ground as they walked. "I left a son and daughter with my parents in Colorado Springs. It’s torture being separated and not knowing what’s happened to them.”
Coop rubbed Riley’s shoulder and turned to Angie. “What about the injured man? What’s his name?”
“Kyle Bradley. He was flying to Paris on business. Kyle and I were the only survivors from either plane as far as I know.”
They reached the plane, and Riley groaned when she saw how far up they needed to climb to reach the cabin. She wondered how they were going to get up the evac slide when Angie grabbed hold of a rope dangling from the plane and started pulling herself up, hand over hand. Coop followed her, and Riley went last. It was hard work, but she was grateful for her climbing experience. Her hands were burning by the time she climbed the ten feet to the top.
Most of the seats were gone, but the remaining ones were formed into two beds in the first-class section. Kyle Bradley was wrapped in blankets across one of them. Angie had cut and taped a life raft over the open door and another evac slide over the gaping hole in the fuselage where the tail section had separated. Riley was impressed with her resourcefulness.
Kyle moaned, and she snapped into doctor mode. His skin was gray and clammy, and it only took seconds to access how grave his condition was.
Riley gave Angie a weak smile. “Would you mind waiting in the truck with the girls while we treat Kyle? I don’t like leaving them out there alone.”
“I’d much rather be there than here,” Angie said. “The medical supplies from the pharmacy are in that backpack on the floor next to him.”
When Angie disappeared back down the evac slide, Riley said, “Help me get these bandages off. It doesn’t look like we have much time.”
She and Coop gently stripped off the makeshift bandages Angie had applied to Kyle’s wound. The sight was far worse than Riley expected.
Coop scratched his head. “Open fracture and the tissue is necrotic. This is hopeless, Riley. It would be too late to save him even if we had a fully stocked and functioning OR.”
“Keep your voice down. He might hear you,” she whispered.
“He’s past hearing us, Riley. He’d have been better off dying in the crash.”
“He would have died if that jagged edge of the femur had moved just millimeters to the left and cut the artery. Let’s see what’s in the backpack. Maybe we can at least ease his pain.”
Coop opened the bag and placed the contents on the seat next to Kyle. Riley inspected each item but found little that would do Kyle any good. There were bottles of medications unrelated to Kyle’s injuries, a few rolls of gauze, some anesthetic spray, and other miscellaneous first aid items like the ones they already had in the truck. She sprayed the anesthetic on the wound, hoping it would numb any still living tissue.
Coop reached the bottom of the pack and said, “Bingo.” He pulled out a vial of morphine and handed it to Riley.
She read the label and said, “How did anyone miss this when they raided the pharmacy. Pain meds are always the first to go. I don’t suppose you have a syringe to go with it in that bag of tricks.”
“No, but there may be one in carry-on luggage if there were any diabetics onboard.”
Angie had emptied the overhead bins and piled the bags near the open end of the plane. Each bag was unzipped and the contents scattered on the floor. Angie had rifled through them, but she wouldn’t have been looking for syringes. Riley and Coop searched for fifteen minutes before she found a case with diabetic testing supplies containing two syringes.
“Got one,” she said as they rushed back to Kyle.
She tapped Kyle’s face to rouse him. He groaned, and his eyes fluttered but didn’t open. Coop pressed two fingers hard against his sternum with no response.
“He’s unconscious. Just do it.”
She squatted next to Kyle and wiped the sweat from his forehead with a wad of gauze. “What if he’s allergic? It could kill him.”
“He’d thank us. If you want my opinion, you should double dose him.”
She glared up at him. “That would be lethal.”
Coop stared for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“I can’t kill him. Time will do that soon enough.”
Coop held out his hand. “Let me.”
Riley crossed her arms and tucked the vial into her armpit. “First, you want to abandon a woman stranded alone in the middle of this chaos, and now you want to euthanize a patient. I’m finding it hard to recognize the revered Dr. Neal Xavier Cooper IV I thought I knew.”
“Don’t judge me against these insane circumstances.”
“I’m giving Kyle the prescribed dose and we’ll let nature take its course. That will save us from becoming murderers. Or maybe he’ll surprise us and survive.”
Coop closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. “And people say I’m difficult to work with. Riley, it would take direct intervention from God to save him now. We wouldn’t be murderers. Overdosing him would be the humane thing to do, but we don’t have time to argue the ethics of euthanasia. We need to get moving.”
Riley injected Kyle with the recommended dose. “He’s so weak that even the normal amount might kill him.”
“Then, we’ll know who was right soon enough. How do you plan to get him down that evac slide?”
Riley thought for a moment. “Let’s construct a makeshift splint, then we’ll put him on a blanket with the ends tied like a sling and gently slide him down.”
“Could work, but we’ll most likely kill him trying to get to the truck.”
Getting Kyle down the evac slide was as harrowing as Coop predicted. They almost dropped him three times, but twenty minutes later had him settled in the truck bed. He never moved or made a sound throughout the ordeal.
She pulled Coop away from the others, and said, “I’m going to ride in the back with him. I don’t want him to die alone.”
“It’ll be a cold and rocky ride.”
“We’ll be fine. Wrap us in two sleeping bags.”
“Suit yourself.” He helped her into the truck and climbed in after her.
When he’d covered her and Kyle in the sleeping bags, she said, “What’s the plan now?”
“It’s late, we’re low on gas, and we need to get Kyle to a warm, comfortable place, if such a thing exists. I was hoping to be much further by now.”
“Me too. I’m going to try to sleep. Are you awake enough to drive?”
“I’ve had more sleep than you.”
Riley did a quick calculation and realized she’d had less than eight hours of sleep in the past two days. “You may be right. Here’s hoping we find a place where we can all get a good night’s rest. None of us will hold up much long
er if we don’t.”
Coop saluted. “I’ll do my best boss.”
Julia knocked on the back window of the cab. “What’s the holdup? We’re freezing in here.”
“Coming,” Coop said. He gave Riley a quick hug and kiss before jumping to the ground. “I’ll avoid the bumps as best I can, but it’s going to be rough until we’re past the crash site.”
“I trust you. Just get us there alive.”
He ran his fingers along the window as he passed to the driver's side door. Riley thought of how close she’d come to saying I love you before catching herself. As she laid back against the few remaining boxes, she asked herself if she’d fallen in love with him or if it was no more than a bond born of shared trauma. Her head wanted to believe that was the case, but her heart wouldn’t let it. She tucked the question into the back of her mind and closed her eyes. There would be time to seek her answers once they were out of danger.
Chapter Eight
The crunch of the tires on gravel drew Riley out of her stupor. She’d dozed off in the hour since leaving the crash site, but was plagued by nightmares of rotting bodies half-buried in snow. That left her more exhausted, so she’d forced herself to stay awake the second hour and let her thoughts wander.
When Coop stopped the truck, she reached out from under the sleeping bag to take Kyle’s pulse. His skin was ice cold. Kyle was gone. She drew in her breath, devastated by his death after how hard they’d worked to save him.
Coop, Angie, and the girls walked to the back of the truck. The girls stomped their feet and blew on their hands to stay warm while Coop opened the tailgate. Riley saw Angie through the window, standing apart and staring at the ground. Riley covered Kyle’s face with his blanket before climbing out to go to her.
She quietly approached her and said, “Kyle didn’t make it. There was nothing we could do. I’m truly sorry.”
Light from the aurora glinted off the tears pooling in Angie’s eyes. She turned her back and wiped them with her sleeves. “This is silly. I knew him for less than a week.”